Thesis defense – Annaelle PIVA

From exile to wandering: the presence of exiles in the urban spaces of Paris and Rome, between autonomy and control

Annaelle Piva (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne / Université Laval de Québec / Géographie-cités) will present her doctoral thesis entitled “From exile to wandering: the presence of exiles in the urban spaces of Paris and Rome, between autonomy and control)” written under the supervision of Professors Danièle Bélanger and Nadine Cattan as part of a cotutelle between Université Laval de Québec and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Friday, January 10th
2:00 pm
Humathèque Auditorium
Condorcet Campus
10, cours des Humanités
93322 Aubervilliers

To attend the thesis defense, please contact: annaelle.piva@parisgeo.cnrs.fr

Jury

Danièle Bélanger – Full Professor – Department of Geography, Université Laval – Co-director

Nadine Cattan – CNRS Research Director – UMR Géographie-cités – Co-director

Olivier Clochard – CNRS Research Fellow – Migrinter Laboratory – Examiner

Pamela Colombo – Associate Professor – Department of Sociology, Université Laval – Examiner

Laurent Faret – University Professor – Université Paris Cité – Rapporteur

Antoine Fleury – CNRS Research Fellow – UMR Géographie-cités – Examiner

Bénédicte Michalon – CNRS Research Director – UMR Passages – Rapporteur

 

Abstract

The subject of this thesis is the wandering of exiles in the urban spaces of Paris and Rome. In a context shaped by the securitization of European migration policies, a housing crisis and a structural lack of accommodation in France and Italy, many exiles are experiencing homelessness at different stages of their trajectories. Between 2015 and 2020, large encampments of exiles were set up in urban areas of Paris, and a makeshift camp near Tiburtina train station in Rome has persisted despite numerous dismantling operations.

The thesis is the result of a four-year ethnography, carried out between 2018 and 2021, in Parisian and Roman camps, squats, places where exiles socialise daily in the city, but also within groups or associations helping exiles living on the streets. It understands wandering as the mobility produced by tension between the autonomy of exiles and the control mechanisms implemented at different levels, both by European and national migration policies and by policies for managing undesirability in the city. This confrontation between autonomy and control reconfigures the trajectories of exiled people and has an impact on their spatial practices and the relationships they build. This thesis attempts to open the ‘black box’ of these reconfigurations and of the spatial experience of wandering to understand how the autonomy of exiles ‘on the move’ is constructed and what limits it encounters. Conversely, it analyses the ways in which the presence of exiles is controlled on an urban scale, and the way in which this produces mobility and thus, a specific urban experience.

At the crossroads of migratory and urban studies, bringing together works on homelessness and research on migratory trajectories and their relational infrastructures, the results of the thesis highlight the different infrastructures of arrival and the preponderance of a reception from below by exiled people, volunteers and activists. They also show the importance of relational autonomy regarding the reconfiguration of the networks of actors that enable migrants to deal with the blockages implemented by the policies controlling their mobility and presence.